Once Upon a Lie: A Novel (Riveting Women's Fiction), page 3
"Daddy?" Sasha called back, her tiny voice echoing through the main floor. Something seemed wrong; he picked up his pace toward the kitchen. "Yes," he answered back. "What is going on? Why are you girls still up? He could hear both Sasha and Everly talking rapidly to each other, but their voices were low and hard to make out.
"Mia!" he tried again, but there was still no response.
He jogged the last twenty feet into the kitchen and stopped short in surprise. The scene he saw before him made him shout, "What are you doing?"
Startled, both girls snatched their hands back to their sides. They were standing on dining chairs dragged from the table and positioned in front of the stove. With one quick scan, Alexander took in the chaos of their kitchen: a large pot of water was boiling over, a package of elbow noodles was spilled across the floor, plates, bowls, silverware, a carton of milk, a block of cheese. His two girls, in very big aprons, standing on two chairs, had orchestrated the unsupervised mess.
Without waiting for a response, he swooped in, picked up both girls around their waists, lifted them away from the hot surface, and placed them on the floor near the fridge. He then moved the pot from the burner and turned it off.
Alexander squatted in front of the girls, so he was at eye level and took their clasped hands into his own. "What on earth are you doing?" he asked, his voice more concerned now that he'd had a moment to wrap his head around his shock. "Where is mom?"
The girls started talking at the same time.
"She's sleeping," Everly said.
"And we were hungry," Sasha added.
"What? Sleeping?" Alexander asked and shook his head. "Didn't you have dinner?"
Both girls shook their heads.
"Where is mommy? In bed?"
They shook their heads again. "She's on the floor," Sasha said.
"In the portrait room," Everly added.
Alexander looked Sasha in the eye as he processed their words. "What? She…" He stood up. A slick swell of fear washed through him and made him run from the kitchen. "Mia!" his voice, loud and panicked, thundered through the too-quiet house. "Mia!" His leather-soled shoes skid from beneath him as he took the corner from the hall and into the portrait room. "Mia!" his eyes scanned the dark room until he saw her face down on the carpet next to the coffee table.
"Oh, my god." He rushed to her, turned her body over, and lifted her head and torso into his arms. "Mia." He grabbed her cheeks between his thumb and fingers and shook her head from side to side. "Mia!" he shouted into her face.
Jesus Christ, was she breathing? What happened? What should he do? "Mia!" he tried again, his voice breaking. Call 911. Where was his phone?
He was moving her too much; he couldn't tell if she was breathing. He needed to calm down. In high school, a million years ago, he'd been trained in CPR that summer he'd worked as a lifeguard at the neighborhood pool. He gently lowered her back to the carpet, leaned his ear close to her mouth, and watched her chest closely for any movement.
It was hard to see, all the lights were off, but he thought maybe, he felt her breath on his cheek. A warmth? Maybe? "Mia, please," he whispered. "Please, please. I don't remember how to give CPR."
He heard a small sob and looked up to find Sasha and Everly standing shoulder to shoulder next to the couch. Everly had tears running down her cheeks while Sasha stood stoically with her arm around her sister.
"Girls, we need to call an ambulance. Can you go see if I left my phone in the kitchen?"
Sasha reached out her hand to him. She was already holding his cell.
CHAPTER 5
Holly had just gotten into bed and was only a few paragraphs into her book when her phone buzzed on her night table.
"That must be your boyfriend texting to say goodnight," Harris, her husband, joked as he turned the page of his own book.
"Funny," Holly said, as she laid her book on the bed and grabbed her phone.
It was a text from Alexander.
At the hospital with Mia. She's going to be okay, but can you meet us here?
Holly took a sharp inhale and replied. What happened?
Bad medication/alcohol combo. I could really use your help with the girls.
Which hospital?
Saint Anthony
On my way.
"What's going on?" Harris asked.
Holly pressed her phone against her thigh and looked into his worried eyes. "It's Mia. She's in the hospital. Something about mixing her medication with drinking. Alexander is asking if I can come help him with the girls."
Holly watched as his worried expression shifted to annoyance, the crease between his bushy eyebrows deepening. He shook his head and returned his eyes to his book.
"She's my sister," Holly said.
"Who needs professional help," Harris said, placing his book down. "She's getting worse. Every time I see her, it's something else. And now look." He reached across the handmade quilt covering them both and took her hand. "She OD'd."
Holly shook her head. "She didn't… that's not what he said. It was just the combination of her meds with drinking."
Harris sighed loudly, squeezed her hand, then pulled her close to him until Holly was nestled against him, and she could feel his mid-length beard resting on top of her dyed white, pixie-cut hair. Harris was a large, burly guy. With his bushy brown hair, beard, and elaborate tattooed artwork covering both his arms, he looked intimidating, like a Viking, and probably an odd match next to Holly's spindly frame. She met him ten years ago when she wandered into his tattoo shop to get her first ink. By the time he gave her her third six months later, Harris had worked up enough courage to ask her on a date. They had been inseparable ever since.
But under his gruff exterior, he was a soft, sensitive soul. She knew it wasn't that he didn't care about Mia. He was just more worried about his wife. "So, you're going then?"
Holly tilted her head upward and looked into his pale blue eyes. "Of course, I'm going," she said. "She's my sister."
"So? Does that mean you're obligated to go running every time she falls off the rails?"
"You wouldn't understand. You barely ever speak to your brothers."
"That's because they are both Wallstreet pricks with their greedy heads shoved up their twenty-four-carat assholes. Just because you are delivered into this world saddled with the misfortune of being related to dicks doesn't mean you're required to like them…or even pretend to. As far as I'm concerned, you're all the family I need."
Holly patted his protruding belly, kissed his cheek, and sat upright. "Well, maybe you and I feel differently about what the concept of family means. It's not been easy for Mia. After her accident, she needed me. And now there's Everly and Sasha… it's a rough patch right now."
At the mention of Everly and Sasha, Harris sighed, and his expression softened into resignation. "Fine, you win. Do you want me to come?"
She smiled at him and shook her head. "No. If it takes all night, I'd rather you be here to feed all the animals in the morning."
As if on cue, Ralph, one of their rescued great Danes, popped his head over the side of the bed and looked at them with baleful eyes. Ralph was one of twelve dogs Holly and Harris were fostering on their twenty-acre property.
"Don't look at me," Harris said to Ralph. "I don't want her to go either."
Holly reached over and ran her small hand down Ralph's soft long face. "Don't worry," she said. "He won't forget to feed you."
"I wouldn't dare," Harris said, picking his book back up. "Or you'd come home to discover they'd all conspired and were feasting on me."
Holly scooted to the edge of the bed and swung her legs over the side. "And don't forget Sophie's antibiotics."
"I won't."
"And Chester needs—"
"The heating pad on his back left haunch," he finished her sentence without taking his eyes off his book.
"Set to low," she added, changing from her pajamas into her most comfortable jeans and a tee shirt.
"Set to low."
Ralph pushed his big nose under her hand, insisting on some love. She crouched down in front of him and nuzzled the side of his face. "I'll be back soon," she promised and stood up to leave.
"Call me when you get there," Harris said. "I'll come if you need me."
Holly smiled. "I will, and I'm sure everything will be fine," she said out loud. But privately, she worried all her carefully crafted lies could collapse beneath her at any moment.
CHAPTER 6
When Holly entered Mia's hospital room, the sight of her sister's ashen complexion and thin, gaunt features made her stop short. Alexander was sitting in a yellow, taut pleather armchair in the corner, with both girls looking uncomfortable and crowded as they tried to sleep on his lap. When he turned his head to see her, she could see the exhaustion and worry weighing on him.
Unsure if she should speak and risk waking Mia and the girls, Holly raised a silent hand in greeting.
Alexander stood with the girls and turned, trying to reposition Sasha and Everly back into the uncomfortable chair. He joined her at the door and motioned for her to follow him into the hall. He closed the door most of the way, leaving a crack so he could keep an eye on them.
"Thank you for coming," he said.
Holly nodded. "Is she going to be okay?"
Alexander closed his eyes and nodded. "Yes. But they want to keep her overnight for observation. Can you take the girls home and put them to bed? I'll stay here a few more hours just in case she wakes up."
Holly nodded again. "Of course."
"Thank you, I'll help carry them out to your car," he said and headed back into the room.
Holly followed, and after Alexander picked up Everly, she bent low and gathered Sasha's sleep-heavy body into her own arms. She had so many questions. It had only been two weeks since she'd last seen her sister, but she looked like she'd dropped twenty pounds. What happened? Why did Mia look so terrible? What drugs was she taking, and how long had she been taking them? Two weeks ago, they had been drinking coffee at Mia's kitchen island and discussing the girls' upcoming sixth birthday party. What had changed since then?
Or what had Holly not seen then?
All these thoughts raced through her mind as she followed Alexander through Saint Anthony's brightly lit hallways to the elevators, but Holly didn't think Alexander was up to being interrogated.
She unlocked the doors when they reached her pickup truck in the parking lot, and they loaded the girls into the backseat. They both immediately lay down and curled up, the tops of their heads meeting in the middle of the bench seat.
"Should we get their booster seats?" Holly wondered aloud.
Alexander sighed and seemed to weigh the effort of pulling them from his own car against the potential danger of letting child car safety slip a little—just this once. "It's only a few miles," he said. Let's just buckle them in."
Holly nodded and began threading the belt the best she could around Sasha's horizontal body, remembering that she and Mia had spent most of their childhood tumbling seatbelt free in the back of their mother's white Bentley. Once they closed the back doors, Alexander walked around the truck to where Holly stood next to the driver's side door.
"Thank you again," he said, checking his watch. "I'll be a few more hours…midnight at the latest. He closed his eyes and shook his head. "I'm supposed to teach a class in the morning," he added absently. It was both a realization and a reminder to himself.
Holly watched her brother-in-law heave a big sigh and wondered if she should give him a hug. Or at least some words of reassurance and support. Alexander stood, looking uncomfortable, with his hands shoved into the front pockets of his pants—she had never before hugged her sister's husband. Not the day he and Mia announced their engagement, not the day they got married, and not the day the girls were born. Alexander was a stiff, formal, and unfamiliar sort of man that kept an emotional distance. His body language had never invited her close enough to get within hugging distance.
And that was before he wrote his book, for his own selfish reasons, that exposed Mia and their whole family. It had been several years since Holly's heated accusations about his book, but the scars remained.
Tonight was no different.
"Okay then," she said and opened her door. "Don't worry about the girls. I'll make sure they get back to their own beds." It was the most supportive statement she felt her stilted relationship with Alexander would allow.
"Thank you," he said again. "I appreciate this, Holly."
When she glanced at him, she saw from his pained expression that he meant it. She wondered if maybe Alexander would have liked her to hug him anyway, give him some comfort he didn't know how to ask for.
"Of course," she said. "This is what family is for."
When he nodded, she closed the door, started her truck, and drove her nieces away from whatever trauma she felt certain was brewing inside Mia.
CHAPTER 7
When she made the left turn out of the parking lot and onto the road, she adjusted her rearview mirror to see the twins. They were still fast asleep, heads touching, but their hands were now also clasped. Ever since they were born, Holly could see the twin connection between Sasha and Everly. As infants, they always seemed to be touching. When they were toddlers, they explored together. Now, they frequently finished each other's sentences and often appeared to have some psychic communication only they were privy to. Even unconscious, the girls found each other in the dark. Holly returned her eyes to the road and readjusted her mirror for driving,
She thought of her own sister. Once upon a time, Mia had been a dauntless and cataclysmic force; a hurricane set loose on the world. Thinking of Mia now, shrunken and hidden, looking half-dead in that hospital bed, it was like all Mia's intensity was directed inward and set on self-destruction.
"Don't do this, Mia," Holly whispered into her truck. "Please, not again."
When Holly pulled her truck onto the driveway of her sister's house, her phone buzzed inside her bag. She shifted into park and let the engine keep idling as she reached for the long fabric strap and pulled her small, tattered purse across the bench seat. The phone's illuminated screen made it easy to find in the dark, and when she swiped for her notifications, she saw a text from Harris.
Everything okay?
She responded. Define okay. Alexander's staying at the hospital with Mia for a few hours. I have the girls, putting them to bed.
Want me to come over?
No, try to get some sleep. I'll probably be home before 1:00 anyway.
Let me know if you change your mind. Love you.
Love you.
She shut off the engine and shoved the keys and phone into her bag. She was just considering the logistics of how to get two sleeping five-year-olds out of her truck and into the house when she heard Sasha's small voice.
"Mommy?"
When Holly turned in her seat, she saw that Sasha's eyes were open, and she was pushing herself upright. "No honey, it's Aunt Holly," she whispered. She could see the explanation was doing little to resolve the sleepy confusion on Sasha's face. "Let's get you and Everly inside and into bed, okay?"
Sasha let her eyes droop closed again and nodded.
"Your sister's still asleep. If I carry her, do you think you'll be able to walk into the house?"
Sasha opened her eyes again, looked down at her twin, fast asleep beside her, and nodded.
"Okay then," Holly said as she slid her purse strap over her head. When she opened the door to the backseat, the old truck's rusty door hinges squealed into the quiet night. She unbuckled Sasha and lifted her out to stand on the driveway before leaning in and doing the same for Everly. With the sleep-heavy girl balanced on her left hip, Holly closed the door and did her best to guide Sasha toward the house with her right hand.
Thankfully, Alexander hadn't thought to lock the front door in his rush and confusion to follow the ambulance to the hospital. When she grasped the wrought iron door handle and pressed the lever with her thumb, the heavy door swung inward, easy and silent, saving Holly from rummaging for her copy of their house key in her bag.
With Everly's face now buried against her neck, she guided Sasha over the threshold into the dark house and closed the door behind them with her foot. At the base of the staircase, she felt Sasha slide away from her and onto the floor. When she looked down to see what was wrong, Sasha looked up the stairs and shook her head. "I'm too tired," her voice broke, and Holly knew her niece was near tears.
"Just wait here a second. I'll get Everly upstairs, and then I'll come to carry you."
Satisfied with this plan, Sasha curled up on the circular rug beneath her and closed her eyes.
Holly sighed and started up the stairs, wondering how Mia managed this life daily. By the time she had ferried both girls up the stairs, wrangled their limp limbs out of their clothes and into their nightgowns, and nestled them into their side-by-side matching twin beds, Holly's heart was pounding against her breastbone like she'd been running a race. She stood in their bedroom doorway and watched their sleepy, slack expressions for several seconds before switching on their nightlight and closing the door.
The sheer physical effort required to mother these two girls boggled the mind, and Mia had been doing it for years. And yes, she had Alexander to help—in theory. But Holly knew her sister had always done all the heavy lifting when it came to parenting Sasha and Everly. Alexander loved his girls, but Holly always imagined he considered the manual labor of child-rearing somewhat beneath him. She was sure he would never utter the words women's work—that was archaic. Never mind that his actions or inactions implied the same sentiment and led to the same result. Archaic or not, Mia raised the girls.
Alexander was too busy being a New York Times bestselling author and professor of neuropsychology at Columbia. At least, that was the general impression Holly always had. Maybe it was an unfair assessment? It's not like Mia ever complained about the arrangement, at least not to Holly.
